Crowntide by Alex Aster - 7

“Your father was looking for a lost king.”

Oro frowned. His was the only royal line he knew of.

“Horus,” Cleo continued, speaking of Oro’s ancestor and one of the three founders of Lightlark, “left behind a record, and a map, with orders that it should only be used in the direst of circumstances.”

This was the first time Oro was hearing of it—yet another piece of knowledge that hadn’t been shared with him, since he was never supposed to be king.

Why had his father even been looking for a lost king? During his father’s rule, up until the war, things hadn’t been dire at all. They had been prosperous. Had he anticipated Nightshade would strike? Had he told Egan about this, and not him?

“I’m assuming my father never found him,” Oro said, remembering how the explorations were halted by the war.

Cleo shook her head.

Grim held out his hand impatiently. “The map,” he said, the words a firm order. And for once, Oro was almost grateful for his presence. Because learning all of this about his family had him unmoored. Distracted. Which he couldn’t afford to be, when every moment could mean life or death for Isla.

He fought to take a steady breath. What was she facing now? What did she need? It killed him that he didn’t know, the same way it had when she had left with Grim to end the war. Oro had flown for days just to see if she was alright. He wished he could do that now. He would fly for centuries to her, if he could. Millions of miles. No distance would be too far.

He knew the Nightshade felt the same, which made this circumstance even more frustrating. They both would travel any distance . . . but they didn’t have a road. They didn’t know how to get to her.

Even through his panic, Oro still had a duty to his people. He still had to worry about this Crowntide Cleo spoke of.

Grim clearly didn’t care about an impending war between worlds. He didn’t care about Oro’s family’s secrets. He only cared about getting Isla back, and that, Oro knew, made him villainous—but it also would be an advantage.

Cleo frowned at Grim’s hand before taking it. Oro took Grim’s next. And as soon as he did, Cleo’s white-oak ship faded away in a stomach-turning mess of shadows. The pale wood floor became ice. The Moonling’s most mysterious and powerful relics floated below the thick layer of frost.

Grim had portaled them to the Moon Isle library. During the Centennial, Isla had come to this place in search of what she believed to be the bondbreaker. Oro knew because he’d had Zed follow her here. Before that, Oro had tailed her himself. He had followed her in the skies, from a distance, until his curiosity with her grew into a strange, distracting obsession. The night Isla went to Moon Isle, he had decided to send Zed in his place, thinking time away from her would help. It hadn’t.

No . . . back then, no matter how many times she lied to him, no matter how infuriating she could be, Isla had consumed his thoughts, his worries, his dreams. He had truly wondered if he was losing his mind.

Nothing had changed since then.

Cleo’s white boots clicked along the ice as she stepped over relic after relic. Beneath her feet, objects fluttered in the current, drawn to her power. Swords and daggers and shields glimmered as she passed them.

Finally, she stopped and knelt, as graceful as a cresting wave. Then she punched right through the ice, sending chunks scattering around her. When her hand emerged, it was holding a compass.

“I thought you said it was a map,” Grim said. Cleo simply tossed it to him.

Oro walked over as the Nightshade studied the compass. Closer, he saw there wasn’t an arrow inside . . . but sloshing water. The liquid defied gravity to pull toward one direction, as if telling them where they needed to go. As if this small bit of water was desperate to return to where it had been taken from.

Grim didn’t waste a moment before walking over to the closest column—and shattering the compass against the wall.

“What—”

Glass stuck out of Grim’s hand, but the Nightshade didn’t even seem to feel it, or the blood and saltwater dripping down his skin.

Grim didn’t even glance at Oro as he smeared the water between his thumb and finger, eyes narrowed in concentration. He seemed to be sensing the location of their destination by touch.

And fuck him, but Oro was impressed.

Without a single word, Grim outstretched his hand once more.

Oro and Cleo took it, and were gone.

They landed on an isle in the middle of the ocean. Before Oro could even blink, he was almost swept away by a massive surge. With his Moonling power, he split the water in half so that it missed him. It would have hit Grim right in the center of his chest, if the demon hadn’t made himself formless to avoid it.

Oro turned to see Cleo frowning at his stance. “You never were best in your class,” she murmured, as if she really couldn’t help herself.

The clump of rock they were standing on was almost too small to fit the three of them. Waves churned on all sides, sweeping over their feet and legs.

This was the place his father had spent years trying to find. The reason countless of his men had perished. Oro imagined even with the compass, they could never reach this place without an incredibly powerful Moonling.

The advantage of Grim’s flair was clearer than ever.

Still . . . there was no lost king here, that was certain. But Oro looked to Grim to find he was gazing down into the water .

“Somehow . . .” The Nightshade scowled. “Somehow, it’s—”

“Underwater,” Cleo finished.

All Oro could see was dark blue swirling in massive waves. The lost king must have been deep below. “How—”

Cleo took a deep breath. She sunk into her stance, her feet sliding against the rock, and yes . . . Oro’s paled in comparison to hers. Her white dress and its overly long sleeves whipped wildly in the wind. Her hair, its shade identical, was tied back into an elaborate single braid. She closed her eyes. Exhaled.

And the raging water before them went deathly still. The waves smoothed under her command. The sea was hers, pliant, ready.

Oro’s throat went dry, shocked at this control. At the scale of it. Cleo was a famed wielder. Powerful. Skilled. But even this was beyond expectation.

She dug deeper into her stance, lifted her trembling arms—

And cleaved the sea in half.

The ocean roared as it parted down the center, creating two endless waterfalls on either side. The space grew and grew until it reached the horizon and rippled down beyond his view.

Oro craned his neck to look, but the drop was so long, he couldn’t see the bottom. Only darkness. Still, he could feel it. A strange power slithering up from the gap that Cleo had made. Something—or someone—was down there. Waiting.

“Go,” Cleo ground out, her eyes still closed. “I will hold.”

Her arms were already shaking. The amount of power needed . . .

“We don’t know how hard it will be to find him,” Oro said. “It could take hours. Days .”

Her eyes snapped open. “I will hold,” Cleo said, her gaze fierce with determination. Oro could hear the words she didn’t say.

I will hold for him . For her son.

Cleo. Ruler of Moonling. His former instructor, his subject, his enemy in the war against Nightshade, who had taken Grim’s side.

Now . . . she might be their only hope at getting Isla back. Finding this lost king might be a fool’s errand. But they each had a reason to try.

Oro turned toward Grim, who was considering the endless drop. There was no hint of hesitance in his expression before he jumped.

Oro followed.

He flew downward using his Skyling powers. Grim didn’t have anything but his shadows, but they flared around him like smoke, slowing his descent.

They had to have traveled for miles until, finally, Oro saw a glimmer of the ocean floor.

All at once, he felt something in his blood be ripped away—like veins being torn from skin. The wind vanished. His powers guttered out. His eyes widened as the ground rushed up to meet him. He barely had time to get his hands in front of his face before he roughly crashed, Grim right behind him.

Fuck . Everything hurt. Slowly, he felt around to see if anything was broken. He breathed—and winced. A couple of ribs. Nothing else, at least, he thought, as he slowly got to his feet.

Oro swallowed as he looked up at a sky that had nearly been blotted out. Yes . . . they were miles below the surface. How were they possibly going to make it back without their powers?

Grim stood next to him, his face tilted toward the sky too. Blood was streaming down the side of his head. He didn’t seem to notice. “If Cleo loses her grip on her abilities . . . we’re dead,” Grim said. He couldn’t portal them away, and Oro couldn’t fly them out.

“She will hold,” Oro said, hoping he was right.

All they could do now was move forward. Oro breathed deeply, grimacing at the pain in his ribs and forcing his panic down. He needed to remain calm. Rational.

He turned to examine their path. It wasn’t wide, but it was long, the craggy stretch of land marked with misshapen rocks. A small hill blocked the rest of his view. But this world below . . . it almost resembled the one above, as if someone had sunken an entire island down here. Why? What were they hiding from?

When an ancient bellow broke through the silence, followed by dozens more, Oro realized perhaps what was down here was not hiding —perhaps it had been hidden .

With one glance at each other, they ran up the hill—and stopped dead. Mile after mile, there were hundreds of people and beasts chained to the seafloor. Half-rotted, their clothing just color-leeched tatters. Oro looked to the side through the curtain of water and saw that there were more.

Shackled by their feet, they writhed in pain, grasping their necks. They twitched and eventually stilled, only to lurch to life a few moments later. Oro and Grim watched in silence as they drowned. Died. Revived. Only for the process to be repeated. Again, and again. For eternity, it seemed. An endless torture.

No, this wasn’t just a land, hidden away.

It was an ancient prison.